


In Shadows

by Rainne



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Vampire Turning, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-25
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles gets a telephone call from Buffy.  Somewhat inspired by Gileswench’s Monday Mini Challenge #59 and by the Evanescence song “My Last Breath”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Shadows

He jumped slightly as a sound seemed to echo though his empty flat, his head snapping up from the book he was perusing as his eyes darted all around the living room. He shook his head in disgust. He certainly wasn’t going to be hearing her voice here, was he? She was thousands of miles away in Sunnydale, and he was in Bath, and she wasn’t taking his calls. Rupert Giles gave a slight snort of annoyance, then stood and stretched. His back popped once or twice, reminding him that he wasn’t twenty-five or even thirty-five any more, and that sitting all day could cause kinks. With an expression of world-weariness, he made his way into the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea and tried to rid himself of her echo as he did so.

He leaned against the counter and watched the kettle as it heated, out of habit: once when he was a child, he had set out to prove that a watched pot really would boil, and ever since then he had somewhat enjoyed doing so over and over again. The kettle whistled and he took it off the burner, pouring the water into the pot and setting the leaves to steep for a bit. It was just as he was putting the kettle into the sink that the telephone rang.

“Hello?” he asked, wondering who could be calling.

“Giles.” Her voice was calm and even, and made his heart jump in his chest.

“Buffy?”

“The one and only.” She paused, and then asked him how he was.

“As well as can be expected, I imagine,” he replied. “And yourself?”

“About the same,” she answered. “You have to come back, Giles.”

He sighed. “Buffy, I would like nothing more than to return to Sunnydale, but I truly don’t feel that you’re ready – ”

“The hell with that, Giles,” she interrupted him. “I’m not asking for me. I don’t matter any more. It’s Willow. She’s out of control and she’s gonna do something stupid. Stupider. She has to be stopped, Giles, and you’re the only one who can do that.”

“What’s she doing, Buffy?”

There was a slight pause. “Nothing. Yet. But she’s out of control. The magic… she uses it for everything. You know that. But it’s gotten even more so. And…” there was another pause, longer this time, and he wondered what she wasn’t telling him. “We need you, Giles. It’s bad.”

Giles weighed his instinct to go to her against his vow to force her to stand on her own, factoring in the intense emotional strain she must be under to call him now, when she had refused even to speak to him when he called for the last two months. “All right, Buffy,” he finally said. “I’ll be on the next flight.”

“Thank you.” Her relief was palpable, but she wasn’t done speaking yet. “Giles, I have to know something.” There was another odd pause, and then she almost whispered, “Giles, do you still love me?”

“Of course I do, Buffy!” he exclaimed. “You must always know that I do. Everything I have done over the last several years has been done out of love for you. Even when it was wrong.”

She sighed. “I thought so. But I needed to hear it from you.” There was another pause, longer now, and something about the pauses began to ring an alarm bell in Giles’s head. “I love you, too, you know,” she continued suddenly. “Even though I was angry at you for leaving. I needed you so much, Giles.” For the first time, the calm in her voice seemed to falter. “I needed you so bad, and you weren’t there.”

“Buffy, I – ”

“Don’t.” She cut him off. “It’s over now, and I’ve let it go. I forgive you, Giles. I’m not angry any more. We need you too much for me to hold that grudge.” She paused again, and then said something that brought him up short. “You know, if things had gone differently with Glory… I think we might have ended up as lovers.”

The shadows in the corners of the kitchen seemed to darken and elongate, standing out in sharp contrast as his head spun. His instinct was to hide from it, but her voice demanded the truth from him and he would give it. “Yes,” he agreed softly, “we might have.”

There was a certain satisfaction in her voice once he had admitted this. “I knew it,” she said quietly without gloating. “I have to go, Giles. But promise me you’re coming as fast as you can. Promise, and I won’t be afraid.”

“I promise,” he replied. “The first flight.”

“Okay.” She swallowed audibly. “I love you, Giles,” she said, and then the line went dead.

He managed to find a faster trip than a flight; six hours later he stood in the dark of midnight on Buffy’s front porch, his head reeling a bit from the translocation spell. When he’d got his balance back, he moved to the door and knocked.

Dawn answered, stared at him for a moment with a stricken and tear-streaked face, and then hurled herself at him, sobbing. He went inside with her, sat on the sofa, calmed her down and made her explain her distress. Her words ran him cold.

Six and a half hours ago, Buffy had gone out to patrol. She had forgotten her cellular telephone, so Dawn and Xander went out to track her down and give it to her. It took them about half an hour to find her, but when they did, it was already too late. She was dead just inside the gates of Restfield Cemetery, the sheer number of bite marks on her body indicating that she’d been ambushed by a large gang of vampires as she began her patrol. They carried her home and laid her on her bed, and when Willow learned of the Slayer’s death, she went crazy. She had placed a stasis spell on the room and shielded it heavily to prevent entry, then got in her car and headed down the highway to L.A. with the intention of obtaining an Orb of Thessulah.

Giles’s head reeled. Six hours. She had been lying dead on the ground of Restfield Cemetery while he talked to her dead spirit on the telephone. He wanted to weep and rage, but there was time for that later. He stood, looking down at Dawn. “Stay here, Dawn,” he said softly. Then he turned and started up the stairs.

Three steps from the door to her bedroom, he encountered the magical barrier. He laid his hands on it and with three thunderous words blasted it out of existence. Another step inward and he encountered the edge of the time distortion that was the stasis spell, preventing Buffy from rising, if she had indeed been turned, by freezing time around her. With another explosion of words, Giles wrenched the fabric of Time back into place. There was the sensation of wind as the area affected by Willow’s spell doubled its speed in order to catch up with the rest of the world. And then he stood just outside the door and listened.

A moment or two later, Giles heard the sound he had dreaded to hear: that of a light-footed young woman rising from a bed she had no business rising from. He reached into his overcoat pocket, pulled out a stake, and pushed the door open.

She looked up at him with brilliant viridian eyes from the center of the room where she stood, still in her bloody and torn clothing.

He swallowed hard, moving slowly toward her.

She did not move, staring up at him with those eyes, so full of trust and love, and she smiled gently.

He stopped in front of her and raised his stake. “I’m sorry, Buffy,” he said softly, his eyes filling with tears.

Her smile slowly turned into a smirk. “I’m not,” she replied in a cold, deadly voice. And then she struck.

\--End--  



	2. In Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy has been turned into a vampire.

Willow was too far gone to notice anything odd when she re-entered the house on Revello Drive. She held in her hand an Orb of Thessula, the object she would need to do the re-ensouling spell on Buffy. All she needed now was thirty minutes alone in her bedroom and then it would be safe to drop the stasis spell she’d done on Buffy’s room, where her bitten, ravaged body lay, waiting for darkness to fall so that it could rise again.

Dawn was sitting in the chair by the fireplace, her face still and pale. Her eyes glittered as she studied Willow. “Is that the Orb?” Dawn asked quietly. Her voice was no longer the shaky, tear-filled thing it had been. It was calm, steady. The back of Willow’s mind, the part that was still rational, declared that Dawn was in shock. This preternatural calm would disperse soon enough, and then they could all expect to deal with Key-sized hysterics.

The red-haired witch nodded. “Yep,” she replied, draping her coat over the banister. “I’m gonna have to be alone for about a half an hour or so, Dawnie, do you think you’ll be okay for that long?”

“I’ll be fine,” Dawn replied. She stood, moving toward Willow. “Can I see it?” she asked, holding her hand out.

Willow allowed this, dropping the ball into Dawn’s outstretched hand. “Be careful with it,” she added. “It’s the last one I could find on this continent.”

Dawn moved toward the window, holding the little globe up and looking at the moon through it. “It’s beautiful,” she commented idly. “Who would think there could be this kind of power in something so… small. So boring. I mean, the one you used on Angel, Giles was using it as a paperweight. Right?”

“Yeah.” Something about Dawn’s manner was making Willow just a bit tense. “Well, time’s wasting,” she said. “Better let me get upstairs.”

“In a minute,” Dawn replied, still studying the Orb. “It’s a hell of a thing, when you think about it. The power to re-ensoul a vampire. And you did it when you were what? Seventeen?” She raised an eyebrow at Willow. “It’s amazing. You must be, like, one of the most powerful witches on the planet by now.”

“Well, I might be,” Willow temporized, trying to sound modest and failing. She loved having her ego stroked, and the magic was definitely a good way to accomplish that. She stepped into the living room, approaching Dawn at the window. “Tara’s close, but I’m stronger than she is.”

“Really?” Dawn’s eyes flicked to Willow, and then over her shoulder to something behind her.

Willow turned. Her eyes widened. “Giles!”

“Good evening, Willow.” Giles stepped in from the dining room, locking the front door behind him idly as he came to stand in the living room doorway. “It would appear I’ve arrived just in time.”

“Oh, I’ve got everything under control,” Willow replied confidently. “A little Romanian, a little incense, and the Orb here, and Buffy’ll be good as new.”

“And how important would you say the Orb is?” Dawn asked curiously, her eyes back on the topic of discussion. “Would you say you, like, can’t do the spell without it?”

Something twigged in the base of Willow’s neck. “Pretty much,” she responded, suddenly wary. She put her hand out, reaching for the Orb. “Let me have it,” she said. “I need to get started before it gets too late.”

Dawn turned to face Willow, the Orb now held tightly in one hand. “You think so?” she asked softly. "I dunno... I think it's already too late." Then she smirked, drew her hand back, and threw the crystal against the back wall of the fireplace. Her aim was perfect, and the Orb shattered against the brick.

“Dawn!” Willow screamed, staring in shock at the tiny slivers of crystal which now littered the carpet. “What are you doing?”

“Changing your plans,” Dawn replied.

Willow looked back at the young girl and gasped. “Oh, God, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Dawn replied, grinning ferociously around a mouth full of fangs, her eyes bright yellow. “Thanks for bringing Buffy back home, Willow, she and I really needed a little bonding time.”

Willow opened her mouth to cast a spell, but Giles was faster, shouting several words in Sumerian which effectively froze Willow’s vocal cords. And then a hand reached up and caressed the back of Willow’s neck.

The fingers were strong, incredibly strong, and the flesh was soft but cold. And the voice which buzzed in Willow’s ear was as familiar as her own. “Don’t worry, Will,” Buffy whispered softly, directly into the shell of Willow’s ear. “It only hurts for a minute, and then after that it’s so good.” Her lips came to rest against the soft flesh of the trembling witch’s neck. Those lips parted and Willow whimpered, but the touch that caressed her flesh was that of Buffy’s tongue, trailing slowly down the creamy column to the place where the pulse beat wildly against the flesh.

Buffy inhaled a deep breath, then grinned up at Giles. “Wanna join me in a little snack?”

Willow’s eyes fluttered closed as her body was bracketed by the former Watcher and Slayer. Giles’s hands caressed the flesh of her arms as he bent forward to make intimate acquaintance with the other side of her neck. And then in unison, they both bit, pierced flesh, and drank deeply.

The pain, as Buffy had predicted, only lasted a few moments, to be replaced first by a rushing euphoria and then gradually by a coldness which seeped in from her extremities to gradually fill her body.

The last thing she was aware of before the darkness claimed her was Buffy’s voice, ordering Dawn to feed her. Then there was a press of flesh against her numb lips, and a thick, delicious flavor in her mouth. Then there was nothing.

Willow woke to the sound of Buffy’s voice. “I know you’re hungry,” Buffy was saying to someone. “Xander and Anya are on their way over. I still can’t believe he left you here alone with me. What an asshole.”

“Well, he went to try and find Tara,” Dawn was defending Xander. “He didn’t know what was gonna happen.”

“Be calm, love,” Giles interjected smoothly. “Look, I do believe our sleeper is awakening.”

Willow slowly opened her eyes, then sat up. She looked at her friends – her family. “I’m hungry,” she said simply.

“I know,” Buffy replied. “Dawn is, too. I was just telling her Xander and Anya are on their way over. You can both eat when they get here.”

“How much longer?” Willow demanded.

“Not very,” Giles replied. Then he moved to the window and took a careful peek around the tightly-closed blinds. The morning sun was just beginning to show. “Ah, there they are now. Buffy, the kitchen, please.”

Buffy moved back into the kitchen and then around into the dining room. Wouldn’t do for them to see her immediately. There was the sound of Xander’s car stopping in the driveway, and then voices, and then their footsteps coming up onto the porch. God, her senses were even stronger! She loved it. The front door opened.

“Willow, did you do the – Giles?”

“Hello Xander, Anya.”

“You can’t have the store back.”

“Anya, I am not here for the store. Come inside and close the door, please.”

Dawn’s voice, whining. “I’m hungry.”

“Well never fear, Dawnie, because the Xand-man has brought doughnuts! Jellies, anybody? Too bad I didn’t know you were here, G-Man, I’d have gotten extra.”

“Xander, I have repeatedly asked you not to call me that.”

“Sorry.” But he clearly wasn’t.

“Sit down, please.” Giles sounded tired and cranky, as he always did.

“Why’s it so stuffy and dark in here?” Anya demanded.

“Anya, come sit by me?” Dawn wheedled.

There was the sound of sitting, of furniture being squashed beneath bodies. Buffy peeked carefully around the dining room door. Everything was perfect. Dawn and Anya were sitting on the couch together, fumbling with doughnuts and coffee. Xander was sitting in the chair by the kitchen door. Giles was standing behind him and Willow was to his side.

Buffy caught Giles’s eye. He smirked slightly and nodded toward Dawn, who was watching him intently. Then he looked at Willow and gave a broad grin. “Well then,” he said as Buffy came around the corner and blocked the hallway by the front door. “Shall we dine?”

\--End--  



End file.
